Octopuses may be so terrifyingly smart because they share humans' genes for intelligence
By Donavyn Coffey published July 01, 2022
Genetic sequences called transposons help regulate learning.
Octopuses are brainy creatures with sophisticated smarts, and now scientists have uncovered a clue that may partly explain the cephalopods' remarkable intelligence: Its genes have a genetic quirk that is also seen in humans, a new study finds.
The clues that scientists uncovered are called "jumping genes," or transposons, and they make up 45% of the human genome. Jumping genes are short sequences of DNA with the ability to copy and paste or cut and paste themselves to another location in the genome, and they've been linked to the evolution of genomes in multiple species. Genetic sequencing recently revealed that two species of octopus — Octopus vulgaris and Octopus bimaculoides — also have genomes that are filled with transposons, according to a study published May 18 in the journal BMC Biology.
In both humans and octopuses, most transposons are dormant, either shut down due to mutations or blocked from replicating by cellular defenses, the study authors reported. But one kind of transposon in humans, known as the Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements or LINE, may still be active. Evidence from prior studies suggests that LINE jumping genes are tightly regulated by the brain, but are still important for learning(opens in new tab) and for memory formation in the hippocampus.
When the scientists took a closer look at octopus jumping genes that could freely copy and paste around the genome, they discovered transposons from the LINE family. This element was active in the octopus's vertical lobe — a brain section in octopuses that is critical for learning and is functionally analogous to the human hippocampus, Graziano Fiorito, study coauthor and a biologist at the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station (SZAD) in Naples, Italy, told Live Science.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/jumping-genes-octopus-intelligence
= new reply since forum marked as read
